This Could Be The Reason He’s Not Texting You Back

Coming up with the infallibly witty banter, nailing the balance of emoji to word count, getting it cross checked and approved by 14 different friends and then finally mustering up the courage to hit send. Yep, crafting the perfect response to a bae-to-be is bloody hard work.

So when he has the audacity to leave you hanging, it’s straight-up heart breaking. But new research has revealed the one mistake you might be making when it comes to chatting via text: punctuation.

The study, published in Computers in Human Behaviour, expanded on previous research into the effect of using periods in texts and the particular meaning they convey. In their experiments, they found that messages which included a full stop were viewed as less sincere, less enthusiastic and more negative.

So if you're ending your textual exchanges with a full stop you could be sending the vibe that you're not as keen.

“The take away is that anything we include in our text message — the punctuation we choose, the way that words are spelled, a smiley face — can change the meaning,” study author Celia Klin, a professor of psychology at Binghamton University, explained to PsyPost.

“People use what they have available them to when they text. Because they don’t can’t use tone or voice or facial expressions, for example, they use things like punctuation to add to or change the meaning of the words. The hope, of course, is that the meaning that is understood is the one we intended.”